Serapeum

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Serapeum

A Serapeum is a temple

Temple

A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A ??templum?? constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur....
or other religious institution dedicated to the syncretic

Syncretism

Syncretism consists of the attempt to reconcile disparate or contrary beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term may refer to attempts to merge and analogy several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, and thus assert an underlying unity allowing for an inclu...
Hellenistic

Hellenistic civilization

File:Diadochen1.pngHellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Ancient Greece influence in the Classical Antiquity from 323 BC to about 146 BC ....
-Egyptian

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
god Serapis

Serapis

Osiris

Osiris was an Egyptian mythology, usually called the god of the Afterlife.Osiris is one of the oldest gods for whom records have been found; one of the oldest known attestations of his name is on the Palermo Stone of around 2500 BC....
and Apis

Apis (Egyptian mythology)

In Egyptian mythology, Apis or Hapis , was a bull-deity worshipped in the Memphis, Egypt region.According to Manetho, his worship was instituted by Kaiechos of the Second dynasty of Egypt....
in a humanized form that was palatable to the Ptolemaic Greeks

Ptolemaic dynasty

The Ptolemaic dynasty was a Hellenistic Macedonian royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt for nearly 300 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC....
of Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports....
. There were several such religious centers, each of which was a Serapeion or, in its Latinized form, a Serapeum.

Egyptian Serapea
Alexandria

The Serapeum of Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports....
in Ptolemaic Egypt

Ptolemaic Egypt

Ptolemaic Egypt began when Ptolemy I Soter declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt in 305 BC and ended with the death of queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt and the Aegyptus in 30 BC....
was a temple built by Ptolemy III (reigned 246–222 BC) and dedicated to Serapis, the syncretic Hellenistic-Egyptian god who was made the protector of Alexandria.

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Egyptian Serapea

Alexandria

The Serapeum of Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports....
in Ptolemaic Egypt

Ptolemaic Egypt

Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
quarter of Alexandria. Besides the image of the god, the temple precinct housed an offshoot collection of the great Library of Alexandria

Library of Alexandria

The Royal Library of Alexandria or Ancient Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was once the largest Great libraries of the ancient world....
. The geographer Strabo

Strabo

Strabo was a Ancient Greeks history, geography and philosophy....
tells that this stood in the west of the city. Nothing now remains above ground.

Excavations at the site of the column of Diocletian in 1944 yielded the foundation deposits of the Temple of Serapis. These are two sets of ten plaques, one each of gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and atomic number 79. It is a highly sought-after precious metal, having been used as money, as a store of value, in jewelry, in sculpture, and for ornamentation since the beginning of recorded history....
, of silver

Silver

Silver is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal....
, of bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive, but sometimes with other chemical element such as phosphorus, manganese, aluminium, or silicon....
, of faience

Faience

Faience or fa?ence is the conventional name in English language for fine tin-glazed pottery on a delicate pale buff body. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an stannous oxide to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history of pottery....
, of sun-dried Nile

Nile

The Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the List of rivers by length in the world.The Nile has two major tributary, the White Nile and Blue Nile, the latter being the source of most of the Nile's water and silt, but the former being the longer of the two....
mud, and five of opaque glass

Glass

Glass generally refers to a Hardness, brittle, transparency amorphous solid, such as that used for windows, many Glass Bottles, or eyewear, including, but not limited to, soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, Muscovite , or aluminium oxynitride....
. The inscription that Ptolemy III Euergetes built the Serapeion, in Greek and hieroglyphs

Hieroglyphs

Hieroglyph or hieroglyphics may refer to:*Egyptian hieroglyphs*Cursive hieroglyphs*Dongba script*Hieroglyphics *more generally, a Character of any logographic or partly logographic writing system....
, marks all plaques; evidence suggests that Parmeniskos was assigned as architect. The foundation deposits of a temple dedicated to Harpocrates

Harpocrates

In Greek mythology, Harpocrates is the god of silence. Harpocrates was adapted by the Ancient Greece from the Ancient Egypt Horus. To the Ancient Egypt, Horus represented the new-born Sun, rising each day at dawn....
from the reign of Ptolemy IV were also found within the enclosure walls.
Sub galleries beneath the temple were most probably the site of the mysteries of Serapis. In 1895, a black diorite

Diorite

Diorite is a grey to dark grey intermediate Intrusion igneous rock composed principally of plagioclase feldspar , biotite, hornblende, and/or pyroxene....
statue representing Serapis in his Apis bull incarnation with the sun-disk between his horns was found at the site; an inscription dates it to the reign of Hadrian

Hadrian

Publius Aelius Hadrianus , as emperor Imperator Caesar Divi Traiani filius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, and Divus Hadrianus after his apotheosis, known as Hadrian in English language, was Roman Emperor of Roman Empire from AD 117 to 138, as well as a Stoicism and Epicureanism philosopher....
(117-38). " (in reality erected by Diocletian

Diocletian

Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus , born Diocles and commonly known as Diocletian , was Roman Emperor from November 20, 284 to May 1, 305....
) above the original site of the Alexandrian Serapeum]]

Destruction of the Alexandrian Serapeum

Two conflicting accounts of the reasons and context of the destruction of Alexandria's Serapeum exist.

According to early Christian sources, bishop Theophilus of Alexandria

Theophilus of Alexandria

Theophilus of Alexandria, was Pope of Alexandria, Egypt from 385 to 412. He is regarded as a saint by the Coptic Orthodox Church.He was a Coptic Pope at a time of conflict between the newly dominant Christians and the pagan establishment in Alexandria, each supported by a segment of the Alexandrian populace....
was Nicene patriarch

Patriarch

Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised Autocracy authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy....
when the decrees of emperor Theodosius I

Theodosius I

Flavius Theodosius , also called Theodosius I and Theodosius the Great , was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Reuniting the eastern and western portions of the empire, Theodosius was the last emperor of both the Eastern Roman Empire and Western Roman Empire....
forbade public observances of any rites but Christian. Theodosius I had progressively made the sacred feasts of other faiths into workdays (389

389

Events...
), forbidden public sacrifices, closed temples, and colluded in acts of local violence by Christians against major cult sites. The decree promulgated in 391

391

Events...
that "no one is to go to the sanctuaries, [or] walk through the temples" resulted in the abadonment of many temples throughout the Empire, which set the stage for widespread practice of converting or replacing these sites with Christian churches.

In Alexandria, Bishop Theophilus obtained legal authority over one such forcibly abandoned temple of Dionysus

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos , is the God of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, among whom Greek mythology treated Dionysus as a late arrival....
, which he intended to turn it into a church. During the renovations, the contents of subterranean spaces ("secret caverns" in the Christian sources) were uncovered and profaned, which allegedly incited crowds of non-Christians to seek revenge. The Christians retaliated, as Theophilus withdrew, causing the pagans to retreate into the Serapeum, still the most imposing of the city's remaining sanctuaries, and to barricade themselves inside, taking captured Christians with them.
These sources report that the captives were forced to offer sacrifices to the banned deities, and that those who refused were tortured (their shins broken) and ultimately cast into caves that had been built for blood sacrifices. The trapped pagans plundered the Serapeum (Rufinus & MacMullen 1984).

A letter was sent by Theodosius to Theophilus, asking him to grant the offending pagans pardon and calling for the destruction of all pagan images, suggesting that these were at the origin of the commotion. Consequently, the Serapeum was levelled by Roman soldiers and monks called in from the desert, as were the buildings dedicated to the Egyptian god Canopus

Canopus, Egypt

Canopus was an Ancient Egyptian coastal town, located in the Nile Delta. Its site is in the eastern outskirts of modern-day Alexandria, around 25 kilometres from the centre of that city....
. The wave of destruction of non-Christian idols spread throughout Egypt in the following weeks, as documented by a marginal illustration on papyrus

Papyrus

Papyrus is a thick paper material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland Cyperaceae that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
from a world chronicle written in Alexandria in the early 5^th century, which shows Theophilus in triumph (illustration, above left); the cult image of Serapis, crowned with the modius

Serapis

Serapis was a Syncretism Hellenistic-ancient Egypt god in classical antiquity. His most renowned temple was at Alexandria,. Under Ptolemy I of Egypt, efforts were made to integrate Egyptian religion with that of their Hellenic rulers....
, is visible within the temple at the bottom (MacMullen 1984).

A slightly different version of this account of the destruction of the Serapeum begins with bishop Theophilus closing down a Mithraeum

Mithraeum

Mithraeum is a place of worship for the followers of the mystery religion of Mithraism. They were often constructed underground or in a cave to resemble the cave where Mithras is said to have slain the sacred bull ....
, rather than the temple of Dyonisus, but details of the ensuing profanation and insinuation of human sacrifices substantially agree.

A second account of the incident is found in writings by Eunapius

Eunapius

Eunapius was a Greece sophist and historian of the 4th century....
, the pagan historian of later Neoplatonism. Here, an unprovoked Christian mob successfully used military-like tactics to destroy the Serapeum and steal anything that may have survived the attack. According to Eunapius, the remains of criminals and slaves, who had been occupying the Serapeum at the time of the attack, were appropriated by non-Christians, placed in (surviving) pagan temples, and venerated as martyrs (Turcan, 1996).

Whichever the incidental cause, the destruction of the Serapeum described by Christian writers Tyrannius Rufinus

Tyrannius Rufinus

Tyrannius Rufinus or Rufinus of Aquileia was a monk, List of historians, and Theology. He is most known as a Translation of Greek language Church Fathers material into Latin—especially the work of Origen....
and Sozomen

Sozomen

Salminius Hermias Sozomenus was a historian of the Christianity church....
was but the most spectacular of such occasions, according to Peter Brown

Peter Brown (historian)

Peter Robert Lamont Brown is a historian and professor of history....
. While several ancient and modern authors have interpreted the destruction of the Serapeum in Alexandria as representative of the triumph of Christianity and an example of the attitude of the Christians towards pagans, Brown frames it against a backdrop of frequent mob violence in the city, where the Greek and Jewish quarters had fought since the first century BCE. Indeed, Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima c 314. He is often referred to as the Father of Church History because of his work in recording the history of the early Christianity church, especially Chronicon and Church_History_....
mentions street-fighting in Alexandria between Christians and non-Christians occurring as early as 249 CE, and there is evidence that non-Christians had taken part in citywide struggles pro and against Athanasius in 341 and 356 CE. Similar accounts are found in the writings of Socrates of Constantinople. R. McMullan further reports that, in 363, Bishop George was killed for his repeated acts of pointed outrage, insult, and pillage of the most sacred treasures of the city..

Saqqara

The Serapeum located north west of the Pyramid of Djoser

Pyramid of Djoser

The Pyramid of Djoser , or step pyramid is an archeological remain in the Saqqara necropolis, Egypt, northwest of the city of Memphis, Egypt....
at Saqqara

Saqqara

Saqqara or Sakkara, Saqqarah is a vast, ancient burial ground in Egypt, serving as the necropolis for the Ancient Egyptian capital, Memphis, Egypt....
—a necropolis

Necropolis

A necropolis is a large cemetery or burial place . Apart from the occasional application of the word to modern cemeteries outside large towns, the term...
near Memphis, Egypt

Memphis, Egypt

Memphis was the ancient capital of the first Nome of Lower Egypt, and of the Old Kingdom of Egypt from its foundation until around 2200 BC and later for shorter periods during the New Kingdom, and an administrative centre throughout ancient history....
, was the burial place of the Apis bulls

Apis (Egyptian mythology)

Ptah

In Egyptian mythology, Ptah was the deification of the primordial mound in the Ennead cosmogony, which was more literally referred to as Ta-tenen , meaning risen land, or as Tanen, meaning submerged land....
. It was believed that the bulls became immortal after death as Osiris
Osiris

Osiris was an Egyptian mythology, usually called the god of the Afterlife.Osiris is one of the oldest gods for whom records have been found; one of the oldest known attestations of his name is on the Palermo Stone of around 2500 BC....
Apis, shortened to Serapis in the Hellenic period. The most ancient burials found at this site date back to the reign of Amenhotep III

Amenhotep III

Amenhotep III was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1391 BC-December 1353 BC or June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC after his father Thutmose IV died....
.

In the XIII century BCE, Khaemweset

Khaemweset

Prince Khaemweset was the fourth son of Ramesses II, and the second son by his queen Isetnofret. He is by far the best known son of the king, and his contributions to Egyptian society were remembered for centuries after his death....
, son of Ramesses II

Ramesses II

Ramesses II was the third Egyptian pharaoh of the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt. He is often regarded as Ancient Egypt's greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh....
, ordered that a tunnel be excavated through one of the mountains, with side chambers designed to contain large granite sarcophagi

Sarcophagus

A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek language sa?? sarx meaning "flesh", and fa?e?? phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos the word came to refer to the limestone t...
weighing up to 70 tonnes each, which held the mummified remains of the bulls. A second tunnel, approximately 350 m in length, 5 m tall and 3 m wide, was excavated under Psamtik I and later used by the Ptolemaic dynasty

Ptolemaic dynasty

The Ptolemaic dynasty was a Hellenistic Macedonian royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt for nearly 300 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC....
.
The long boulevard leading to the ceremonial site, flanked by 600 sphinx

Sphinx

A sphinx is a zoomorphic mythological figure which is depicted as a recumbent lion with a human head. It has its origins in sculpted figures of Old Kingdom Ancient Egypt, to which the ancient Greeks applied their own name for a female monster, the "strangler", an archaic figure of Greek mythology....
es, was likely built under Nectanebo I

Nectanebo I

Nectanabo was a pharaoh of the Thirtieth dynasty of Egypt.In 380 BC, Nectanebo deposed and killed Nefaarud II, starting the last dynasty of Egyptian kings....
.

The temple was discovered by Auguste Mariette, who had gone to Egypt to collect coptic

Coptic

Coptic may refer to:* the Copts, Christian natives of Egypt* the Coptic language**the Coptic alphabet...
manuscripts but later grew interested in the remains of the Saqqara necropolis. In 1850, Mariette found the head of one sphinx sticking out of the desert sand and followed the boulevard to the site. After using explosives to clear rocks blocking the entrance to the catacomb, he excavated most of the complex. Unfortunately, his notes of the excavation were lost, which has complicated the use of these burials in establishing Egyptian chronology

Egyptian chronology

The creation of a reliable Chronology of Ancient Egypt is a task fraught with problems. While the overwhelming majority of Egyptologists agree on the outline and many of the details of a common chronology, disagreements either individually or in groups have resulted in a variety of dates offered for rulers and events....
.
Mariette found one undisturbed burial, which is now at the Agricultural Museum in Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , which means "the triumphant", is the Cairo and largest city of Egypt.It is the most populous metropolitan area in Egypt and is also one of the most populous in the world....
. The other 24 sarcophagi had been robbed.

A controversial aspect of the Saqqara find is that for the period between the reign of Ramesses XI

Ramesses XI

Ramesses XI reigned from 1107 BC to 1078 BC or 1077 BC and was the tenth and final king of the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt. He ruled Egypt for at least 29 years although some Egyptologists think he could have ruled for as long as 30 years....
and the 23^rd year of the reign of Osorkon II

Osorkon II

Usermaatre Setepenamun Osorkon II was a pharaoh of the Twenty-second dynasty of Egypt of Ancient Egypt and the son of Takelot I and Queen Kapes....
– about 250 years, only nine burials have been discovered, including three sarcophagi Mariette reported to have identified in a chamber too dangerous to excavate, which have not been located since. Because the average lifespan of a bull was between 25 and 28 years, egyptologists believe that more burials should have been found. Furthermore, four of the burials attributed by Mariette to the kingdom of Ramesses XI have since been retrodated. Scholars who favour changes to the standard Egyptian chronology

Egyptian chronology

David Rohl

David M. Rohl is a United Kingdom Egyptology and historian who has put forth several controversial theories concerning the chronology of Ancient Egypt and History of ancient Israel and Judah....
, have argued that the dating of the twentieth dynasty of Egypt

Twentieth dynasty of Egypt

The Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, New Kingdom. This dynasty is considered to be the last one of the New Kingdom of Egypt, and was followed by the Third Intermediate Period....
should be pushed some 300 years later on the basis of the Saqqara discovery. Most scholars rebut that it is far more likely that some burials of sacred bulls are waiting to be discovered and excavated.

Canopus

Another Serapeum was located at Canopus

Canopus, Egypt

Nile Delta

The Nile Delta is the River delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas?from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, it covers some 240 km of Mediterranean coastline?and is a rich agricultural region....
near Alexandria. This sanctuary, dedicated to Isis

ISIS

ISIS is an industry standard interface for technologies, developed by Pixel Translations in 1990 .ISIS is an open standard for scanner control and a complete image-processing framework....
and her consort Serapis, became one of the most famous cult centers of Ptolemaic and Roman

Aegyptus (Roman province)

File:Roman Africa.JPGThe History of Roman Egypt begins with the conquest of Egypt in 30 BC by Augustus , following the defeat of Mark Antony and History of Ptolemaic Egypt Queen Cleopatra VII in the Battle of Actium....
Egypt. Its festivals and rites were so popular that the site became an architectural model for sanctuaries to the Egyptian gods throughout the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
.

At this Graeco-Roman site, a sacred temenos
Temenos

Temenos is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to basileus and anax, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct: The Pythian Games race-course is called a temenos, the sacred valley of the Nile is the ?e????? p??? t??e??? ?????da, the...
enclosed the temple dedicated to the gods, which was located behind a propylaeum or peristyle

Peristyle

In Architecture of ancient Greece and Roman architecture a peristyle is a columned porch or open colonnade in a building that surrounds a court that may contain an internal garden....
court. Auxiliary shrines dedicated to other, less universal, Egyptian deities could be found here as well, including those dedicated to Anubis

Anubis

Anubis is the Greek language name for a jackal-headed deity associated with mummy and the afterlife in Egyptian mythology. In the ancient Egyptian language, Anubis is known as Inpu, ....
(Hermanubis

Hermanubis

In classical mythology, Hermanubis was a god who combined Hermes with Anubis . Hermes and Anubis's similar responsibilities lead to the god Hermanubis....
), Hermes Trismegistus

Hermes Trismegistus

Hermes Trismegistus is the representation of the combination of the Greek mythology god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. In Hellenistic Egypt, the Greeks recognised the congruence of their God Hermes with the Egyptian god Thoth....
, the syncretism of Thoth

Thoth

Thoth, , though variations are accepted , was considered one of the more important god of the Egyptian pantheon, often depicted with the head of an Sacred Ibis....
and Hermes

Hermes

Hermes is the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. An Twelve Olympians, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, of general commerce, and of the cunni...
, Harpocrates, and others. Ritual complexes dedicated to Iris were often built around a well or a spring, which was meant to represent the miraculous annual inundation of the Nile. This was also the case in sanctuaries devoted to the Egyptian gods in Roman-era Delos

Delos

The island of Delos , isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos, is one of the most important mythological, historical and archaeological sites in Greece....
, where a central basin provided the water element central in the rites of Isis.

Serapea in Italy

Regio tertia

The Regio III
Rioni of Rome

The word rione comes from the Latin regio ; during the Middle Ages the Latin word became rejones, from which rione. The word has been used since the Middle Ages to name the districts of central Rome, according to the political divisions of that time....
within the city of Rome was named Isis et Serapis because it contained a temple dedicated to the two Egyptian deities. The structure, originally dedicated to Isis alone, was built by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus

Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus

Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus was the leader of the conservative faction of the Roman Senate and a bitter enemy of Gaius Marius.Still young, he was sent to Athens, where he studied under Carneades, celebrated philosopher and great master of oratory....
in the first half of the 1st century BC to celebrate his father's victory over Jugurtha

Jugurtha

Jugurtha or Jugurthen was a Berber Ancient Libya King of Numidia, born in Cirta. The name Jugurthen pronounced in Berber Yugur tn or Yugr tn is actually a Berber name and phrase meaning: is greater than them....
.

The complex, of which only parts of the foundations remain, was originally terraced; during the Flavian dynasty

Flavian dynasty

The Flavian dynasty was a Ancient Rome imperial dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 69 and 96 AD, encompassing the reigns of Vespasian , and his two sons Titus and Domitian ....
, it underwent major renovations, and the cult of Serapis was associated to that of Isis. The temple was finally demolished during the 6th century

6th century

The 6th century is the period from 501 to 600 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era. This century marks the end of Classical Antiquity and the beginning of the Dark Ages....
.

Campus Martius

This temple, dedicated to Isis and Serapis, was built in 43 BC in Rome, on the area known as Campus Martius

Campus Martius

The Campus Martius , was a publicly owned area of ancient Rome about 2 km? in extent. In the Middle Ages it was the most populous area of Rome....
, between the Saepta Julia

Saepta Julia

The Saepta Julia was a building in Ancient Rome where citizens gathered to cast votes. The building was conceived by Julius Caesar and dedicated by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in 26 Before Christ....
and the temple of Minerva

Santa Maria sopra Minerva

Santa Maria sopra Minerva is a basilica churches of Rome Rome. The church, located in the Piazza della Minerva in the Campus Martius region, is considered the only Gothic architecture church in Rome, and is the city's principal Dominican Order church....
.

The Serapeum, 240 m long and 60 m wide, was divided in three sections: a rectangular area could be accessed first by walking under monumental arches; an open square, adorned with red granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of Intrusion , felsic, igneous rock rock . Granite has a medium to coarse texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as Porphyry ....
obelisk

Obelisk

An obelisk An Obelisks is a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramid like shape at the top. Ancient obelisks were made of a single piece of stone, a monolith; however, most modern obelisks are made of individual stones, and can even have interior spaces....
s brought to the city during the first century and erected in couples, followed. The centre of the square was likely occupied by the temple dedicated to Isis, while the third section, a semicircular exedra

Exedra

In architecture, an exedra is a semicircular recess, often crowned by a half-dome, which is usually set into a building's facade. The original Greek sense was applied to a room that opened onto a stoa, ringed with curved high-backed stone benches, a suitable place for a philosophical conversation....
with an apse

Apse

In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault . In Romanesque architecture, Byzantine architecture and Gothic architecture Christian abbey, cathedral and church architecture, the term is applied to the semi-circular or polygonal section of the sanctuary at the liturgical east end beyond the altar....
presumably hosted the altar dedicated to Serapis. Fragments of the obelisks, some quite large, have been found around the current church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva; some archaeologists have proposed that the obelisk facing the Pantheon

Pantheon

Pantheon may refer to:*Pantheon , a word used to describe the set of gods of a particular religion, mythology, or fictional universe* A temple, dedicated to all gods, or to all the gods of a given religion...
(see picture) may have been repositioned from the temple to its current location.

The building was destroyed in the great fire of the year 80

Year 80 was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar....
CE and rebuilt by Domitian

Domitian

Titus Flavius Domitianus , commonly known as Domitian, was a Roman Emperor who reigned from 14 September 81 until his death. Domitian was the last emperor of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 69 and 96, encompassing the reigns of Domitian's father Vespasian , his elder brother Titus , and that of Domitian himself...
; further renovation was initiated by Hadrian, while Septimius Severus

Septimius Severus

Lucius Septimius Severus was a Roman Empire general, and Roman Emperor from April 14 193 to 211. He was born in what is now the Libyan part of Rome's historic Africa Province, making him the first emperor to be born in the Roman province of Africa Province....
ordered the necessary upkeep of the temple's structure. Written records attest to the Serapeum's existence and ritual activity until the 5th century

5th century

The 5th century is the period from 401 to 500 in accordance with the Julian calendar in Anno Domini/Common Era....
CE.

Quirinal Hill

The temple built on Quirinal Hill

Quirinal Hill

The Quirinal Hill is one of the Seven Hills of Rome, at the north-east of the city center. It is the location of the official residence of the Italian Head of State, who resides in the Quirinal Palace....
and dedicated to Serapis was, by most surviving accounts, the most sumptuous and architectonically ambitious of those built on the hill; its remains are still visible between Palazzo Colonna

Palazzo Colonna

The Palazzo Colonna is a palatial block of buildings in central Rome, Italy, at the base of the Quirinal Hill, and adjacent to the church of Santi Apostoli....
and the Pontifical Gregorian University

Pontifical Gregorian University

Pontifical Gregorian University is a pontifical university located in Rome, Italy. Heir of the Roman College founded by St Ignatius of Loyola over 450 years ago, the Gregorian University was the first Jesuit University....
.

The sanctuary, which lay between today's piazza della Pilotta and the large square facing Quirinal Palace

Quirinal Palace

The Quirinal Palace is the official residence of the President of the Italian Republic on the Quirinal Hill, the tallest of the seven hills of Rome....
, was built by Caracalla

Caracalla

Caracalla , born Lucius Septimius Bassianus and later called Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus, was the eldest son of Septimius Severus and Roman Emperor from 211 – 217....
on the western slopes of the hill, covering over thirteen thousand m², as its sides measured 135 m by 98 m. It was composed by a long courtyard (surrounded by a colonnade

Colonnade

In classical architecture, a colonnade denotes a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, as in the famous elliptically curving colonnades that Bernini added to the fa?ade of The apostel Peter's Basilica in Rome, which embrace and define the Piazza....
) and by the ritual area, where statues and obelisks had been erected. Designed to impress its visitors, the temple boasted columns 21,17 m tall and 2 m in diametre, visually sitting atop a marble stairway that connected the base of the hill to the sanctuary.

An enormous fragment of entablature

Entablature

An entablature refers to the superstructure of moldings and bands which lie horizontally above columns, resting on their capital . Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and are commonly divided into the architrave—the supporting member carried from column to column, pier or wall immediately above; the frieze&md...
, weighing approximately 100 tons and 34 m³ in volume (the largest in Rome), belongs to the original temple, as do the statues of the Nile and the Tiber

Tiber

The Tiber is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing 406 kilometres through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea....
, moved by Michelangelo

Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance Painting, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer....
to the Capitoline Hill

Capitoline Hill

The Capitoline Hill , between the Roman Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the seven hills of Rome of Rome. By the 16th century, Capitolinus had become Campidoglio in the Romanesco....
in front of the Senate building.

Hadrian's villa, Tivoli

in Tivoli

Tivoli

The name Tivoli originally indicates the town of Tivoli, Italy in the Lazio region of central Italy, founded a few centuries before Rome. The name has also been applied to other entities:...
.]] Emperor Hadrian (117-138) ordered the construction of a "canopus" in his villa

Hadrian's Villa

The Hadrian's Villa is a large Roman Empire archaeological complex at Tivoli, Italy, Italy....
in Tivoli with typical imperial grandeur: an immense rectangular tank representing a canal, 119 m long by 18 m wide was surrounded by portico

Portico

A portico is a porch that is leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls....
es and statues, leading the way to a Serapeum. Protected by a monumental dome

Dome

A dome is a structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. Dome structures made of various materials have a long architectural lineage extending into prehistory....
, the sanctuary was composed of a public area and a more intimate subterranean part that was dedicated to the chthonic

Chthonic

Chthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Ancient Greek religion.Greek khthon is one of several words for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the Landscape or the land as territory ....
aspect of Serapis.

To mark the inauguration of his temple, Hadrian struck coinage that carry his effigy accompanied by Serapis, upon a dais where two columns support a round canopy. In this manner, the emperor became synnaos, a companion of the god's arcane naos and equal beneficiary of the cult of Serapis at Canopus.

Ostia antica

The Serapeum of Ostia Antica

Ostia Antica

Ostia Antica is a large archeological site that was the harbour city of ancient Rome, which is approximately 30 kilometers northeast of the site....
was inaugurated in 127

127

Events...
CE and dedicated to the sycretic cult of Jupiter

Jupiter (mythology)

In Roman mythology, Jupiter or Jove was the king of the gods,and the god of sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....
Serapis. It is a typical Roman sanctuary, on a raised platform and with a row of columns at the entrance, where a mosaic representing Apis in a typically Egyptian manner can still be seen. From this temple likely came the statue that Bryaxis

Bryaxis

Bryaxis was an ancient Greek sculptor. He worked on the Mausoleum of Maussollos of Mausolus at Halicarnassus which was commissioned by the queen Artemisia II of Caria II of Caria in memory of her brother and husband, Mausolus....
copied for the Serapeum in Alexandria

Pozzuoli

The location known as the Serapeum in Pozzuoli

Pozzuoli

Pozzuoli is a city of the province of Naples, in the Italy region of Campania. It is the main city of the Campi Flegrei....
was, in reality, a slaughterhouse (a macellum), and owes its name to the discovery of a statue of Serapis during the excavations of the original Roman market.

Alexandria

Chuvin, Pierre, 1990 (B. A. Archer, translator). A Chronicle of the Last Pagans,(Harvard University Press). ISBN 0-674-12970-9 The incremental restrictions on "indigenous polytheism" of the governing class, chronicled from imperial edict to imperial edict.
MacMullen, Ramsay, 1984.Christianizing the Roman Empire A.D. 100-400, (Yale University Press).
Turcan, Robert, (1992) 1996. Cults of the Roman Empire (Blackwell) . A translation of Les cultes orientaux dans le monde romain.

Saqqara

Christophe, B. (2001). L'inscription dédicatoire de Khâemouaset au Sérapéum de Saqqara (Pl. V-XIII). Revue d'Égyptologie, 52, 29-55.***

Ostia

Mar, R. (1992). El serapeum ostiense y la urbanística de la ciudad. Una aproximación a su estudio. BA, 13(15), 31-51.
Bloch, H. (1959). The Serapeum of Ostia and the Brick-Stamps of 123 AD A New Landmark in the History of Roman Architecture. American Journal of Archaeology, 63(3), 225-240.
Mar, R. (2001). El santuario de Serapis en Ostia.
Mols, S. (2007). The Urban Context of the Serapeum at Ostia. BABesch, 82(1), 227-232.

Rome

Coarelli, F. (1996). Iseum et Serapeum in Campo Martio; Isis Campensis. In E. M. Steinby (Ed.), Lexicon Topograficum urbis Romae (Vol. 3, pp. 107-109).
Filippo Coarelli, I monumenti dei culti orientali a Roma in La soteriologia dei culti orientali nell'Impero romano, 33-67. Leiden, Brill, 1982 - ISBN 9004065016.
Serena Ensoli. I santuari di Iside e Serapide a Roma e la resistenza pagana in età tardoantica in Aurea Roma, 273-282. Roma, L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2000 - ISBN 8882651266.

Pozzuoli

Charles Dubois. Cultes et dieux à Pouzzoles. Roma, 1902.
Charles Dubois. Pouzzoles Antique. Parigi, 1907.

External links

The author has conflated material from his cited references source (R. Turcan 1996:126): the reason for the conflict that led to the barricading in the Serapeum has been changed from that of his source. Here it is the finding of human skulls and the charge of human sacrifice text instead of a conspiracy and a ridiculing of art work.

"Alexandria, Egypt: Serapeion"

Three references to another Serapeum near the Suez Canal:

- The Serapeum lies on a ridge just west of the Suez Canal.
- To the west of Tussum a large group of dunes occurs which runs to the south-south-west, and at kilometer 90 we reach the Serapeum.
- On Napolean's Map

Three more Serapea - The Tabula Peutingeriana
Tabula Peutingeriana

The Tabula Peutingeriana is an itinerarium showing the cursus publicus, the road network in the Roman Empire. The original map of which this is a unique copy was last revised in the fourth or early fifth century....
shows 3 additional Serapea not discussed in the article ()